CCP Vice Chairman’s Name Misspelled, Firing Could Result

A typo in an official Chinese newspaper has forced the recall of 130,000 copies, leading to bloggers’ speculation that an editor may have to suffer.

Guangxi’s Nanning Evening News had a headline three days ago: “Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping Met With Important Communist Party Representatives.” But the “Jin” in “Jinping” was the character for “enter, 进,” when it should have been the “Jin” that means “near, 近.” The confusion is the result of their identical pronunciations.

Xi Jinping, 58, is the country’s vice chairman and ranked sixth in the Politburo’s Standing Committee. China-watchers believe he has been dubbed the next President and Party Chairman. News and images of the typo have gone down the “memory hole” and can no longer be found on the mainland China internet.

The Chinese blogosphere is abuzz with the possible repercussions. One example given is how the Jinzhou Evening News was ordered to cease publication after the slogan “Heaven Will Eliminate the CCP, Quit the Party to be Safe” appeared written on the banister of bike rack in the corner of a photo showing a row of red CCP flags, which appeared on the front page for Sept. 27, 2009.

In 2006, a newspaper in Jiujiang, Jiangxi omitted the word “out” in the phrase “Without the Communist Party, there will be no new China,” causing the sentence to become “With the Communist Party, there will be no new China.” In the end, the president and the chief editor were all sacked.

During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), a female elementary school teacher accidently put “socialism” and “fall down” together in a lesson on Chinese characters. She subsequently suffered humiliation and violent “criticism.” Her daughter rebuked her publicly and the teacher spent several years as a janitor.